


but i’m certain that i’m yours

by angelica_barnes



Series: ABC [24]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Jughead Jones, Break Up, Fluff and Angst, Getting Back Together, I haven't actually watched the show, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love, Multi, Mutual Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, but i think some of this is canonically accurate, cause grundy (bitch), so I'm sorry for any confusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 14:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20027134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: archie and jughead are soulmates.then there's grundy, the road trip, asexuality, and girls.things turn out alright.probably.(or, sophomore year.)24. ex-forever (i couldn't find any word that worked that started with x just roll with me here okay)





	but i’m certain that i’m yours

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Certain Things" by James Arthur & Chasing Grace
> 
> PLAYLIST:  
JULY  
Wait For Me - Hadestown (Archie)  
Only You - Selena Gomez (Jughead)
> 
> AUGUST  
Always Hate Me - James Blunt (Archie)  
Dynasty - MIIA (Jughead)
> 
> SEPTEMBER  
watch - Billie Eilish (Archie)  
I Know What You Did Last Summer - Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello (Jughead)
> 
> OCTOBER  
You Are The Reason - Calum Scott (Archie)  
The Story Of Us - Taylor Swift (Jughead)
> 
> NOVEMBER  
Surrender - Natalie Taylor (Archie)  
Back To You - Selena Gomez (Jughead)
> 
> DECEMBER  
I’d Lie - Taylor Swift (Archie)  
My Body Is A Cage - Peter Gabriel (Jughead)
> 
> JANUARY  
Strawberries & Cigarettes - Troye Sivan (Archie)  
i hate u, i love u - gnash ft. olivia o’brien (Jughead)
> 
> FEBRUARY (interlude)  
It Ain’t Me - Selena Gomez, Kygo (Betty)  
In The Bedroom Down The Hall - Dear Evan Hansen (Veronica)
> 
> MARCH  
Stay - Post Malone (Madilyn Bailey cover) (Archie)  
Hold On - Chord Overstreet (Jughead)
> 
> APRIL  
Secret - Seal (Archie)  
I Know Places - Taylor Swift (Jughead)
> 
> MAY  
Say You Won’t Let Go - James Arthur (Archie)  
My Immortal - Evanescence (Jughead)
> 
> JUNE  
I Get To Love You - Ruelle (Archie)  
Ours - Taylor Swift (Jughead)
> 
> JULY (again) (interlude)  
Mine - Taylor Swift (Fred)
> 
> also juggie's ace struggle is incredibly self-indulgent on my part so yeah
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!! :) :) :)

**in whatever part of the world I may be,**

**I shall never cease to think of you.**

**if I may never see you again**

**I shall always love you.**

**while I live**

**I will not cease to love you.**

**\- Kristina Vasa**

  
  
  


_ July _

  
  


** _he called your name before he went, but I guess you weren’t listening._ **

Archie Andrews has known who his soulmate is since he was old enough to ask questions, even before he learned to read the name right over his heart, because his parents were kind enough to read it out loud to him every night before bedtime.

_ Jughead Jones. _

It’s been there ever since. Deep and bold and black, love seared into his skin without his say. Sometimes he traces the delicate scrawl at night when no one’s watching, when he misses his mother or just Jughead beside him.

Because that’s just it, isn’t it? He had Jughead. It wasn’t hard either, the two of them falling in love almost as easily as falling asleep, or as easy as falling asleep was in each other’s arms. Archie has felt more love in his sixteen years than most people feel before they’re twenty-nine combined. And all because he’s one of the lucky few who was born with his soulmate rather than having to wait for it.

Some people get it at eighteen. Most people have to wait until they’re twenty-nine, and so they date other people in the meantime, while they wait. Some even get married to their partners, but they always end up with their soulmates in the end, which is the plot of many a romance novel, but a happy ending for a non-soulmate pair is about as common as a human and a vampire falling in love in the real world. It doesn’t happen, because it’s not possible.

Any pair that tries to deny this has never met their soulmate, because Archie knows that the presence of your soulmate is a stupid thing to try and resist. It’s almost overwhelming to look at Jughead, even now, after ten  _ years _ of friendship and more than friendship. A fucking  _ decade _ .

So he’s running, sprinting down the dark streets to Pop’s, trying to get there on time despite the clock having to go backward for that to work, hoping and wishing and praying that Jughead will be there and Jughead will listen and Jughead will forgive him.

But there’s an empty booth and forty missed phone calls and a couple million nights of insomnia because Jughead won’t forgive him and Jughead is gone.

And breaking their promise, he doesn’t take Archie with him.

  
  


** _all I needed was the love you gave._ **

Jughead Jones is not a fucking idiot, okay? He knows that in the end, he’ll probably end up running back into Archie’s arms. Either that or he’ll kill himself trying not to and be buried next to Archie, because if a person dies then their soulmate does too, and everybody knows it. Not that it’s an exact science; no one drops dead as soon as their soulmate’s heart stops beating, but no one lives much longer afterwards.

So yeah, Jughead knows that he’ll probably end up back with Archie. Hell, he  _ will _ , he’s never not been in love with the fucking idiot with his stupid eyes and his stupid smile and his  _ stupid _ lettermen jacket -

No! Jughead will not do this to himself, okay? He will not be that guy, the one that there are so many movies about who can’t live without his soulmate. Jughead is better than some fucking Taylor Swift song (he actually loves Taylor Swift, but no one other than Archie will ever know that).

So he tells himself over and over again that he will not forgive Archie Andrews, he will not let him back in like nothing ever happened, like he didn’t just fucking leave Jughead here after months and years and days of waiting, of counting down the seconds until they’d get to run away, if only for a little while.

He will not forgive Archie Andrews, over and over, like a mantra, all the while catching his eye when they pass each other on the street and knowing that if Archie ever actually opened his mouth, Jughead would be shutting him up with a kiss in a second.

  
  
  


_ August _

  
  


** _and he will always hate me, no matter what I say._ **

Archie lives in a bit of haze without Jughead there with him. It takes awhile to get used to, and by that he means he’s not used to it, he’s not, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be.

Sometimes he goes to the drive-in, just on the off chance that Jughead might be there, lurking in the back or on top of somone else’s car so he doesn’t have to pay. That was always sort of a tradition of theirs; they would go to the drive-in together, Jughead would snort and shove Archie away whenever he offered a hand, he would insist they shouldn’t be paying to see a movie when they could just watch it at home and it would be just as good (liar), and he would scoff whenever Archie draped his jacket around Jughead’s thin shivering shoulders.

And yet he’d take Archie’s hand as soon as the opening credits started to roll. He’d lean into him during the mushy scenes as he cursed the fuck out of the bad acting and cliche lines. He’d love him, and he’d show it, because he knew that’s what Archie wanted.

And Archie would love him back. Fuck, Archie loved him back, still loves him, though back is a question mark now. In all those parallel universes Jughead used to geek out about, Archie’s not sure there’s a single one in which he doesn’t love Jughead Jones.

So August is hard. Archie runs a lot, and sings a lot, and avoids his dad a lot. Because Fred has questions, questions that Archie doesn’t know the answer to. Answers he doesn’t want to hear out loud, perfectly happy with them echoing in the back of his mind where no one else can hear.

Like this conversation, late at night, when Fred is scratching at Mary’s name on his wrist for the fifth time that night and Archie is pointedly not looking up from his dinner, not wanting to see the concern in his dad’s eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because most of us don’t lose our soulmates before they die, Archie.”

And Archie rolls his eyes, because he doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to think about it, and opens his mouth to tell his dad he’s fine and that he and Jughead were just friends, nothing more, when -

“And don’t even try to deny that that’s what he is to you, Arch, I know you. And I know he’s yours.”

And that’s just it, isn’t it, in a nutshell, that Jughead Jones is Archie Andrews’ soulmate and he’s lost him because he couldn’t just say no to a fucking teacher.

He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to wrap his hands around Geraldine Grundy’s neck and squeeze until her heart stops beating so she’ll have just a  _ taste _ of what Archie feels like every damn day because of what she made him do, what she made him  _ lose _ .

Instead he shrugs and wipes his mouth, says, “Just a mistake, Dad, don’t worry about it,” excuses himself and leaves.

And it is, isn’t it? Just a mistake? Because he can live with having made a mistake. He’ll even learn from it.

Love can go fuck itself, he decides, and closes his eyes with the wish that Jughead will fuck off too so maybe Archie can stop dreaming about him.

  
  


** _made it through the maze to find my one in a million; now you’re just a page torn from the story I’m living._ **

Jughead always thought love was stupid. What with the mess his mom and dad made, of the kitchen and of each other, bruised hearts that only beat enough for the breath it took to scream curses at one another. Jughead knew they had each other’s names, that they were written into each other’s lives and couldn’t have escaped it if they’d tried.

So Jughead thought love was stupid, did for ages, believed it masochism of the worst kind. The lethal kind.

And then he met Archie Andrews. The kid whose name adorned Jughead’s own chest, the one that he tried to push away and only ended up closer to. The kid he eventually fell in love with, despite trying his damndest not to.

Archie Andrews, the kid who made Jughead Jones believe in love.

And then tore that belief from Jughead’s hands like Jughead’s throbbing broken heart from his chest, taking it with him even as he left Jughead without any indication that their love had even existed outside of Jughead’s dreams. No heart, no beliefs, no hand to grasp in the dark of the drive-in Jughead loved to hate with Archie by his side.

The rest of the summer is spent with Jughead’s heart in Archie’s hands, occasionally dropped, occasionally punched, but still his. Always his, for the rest of the summer, for the rest of their lives, and Jughead snickers to himself as he reads over old biology notes that sarcastically state you can’t live without a heart.

Who says, Jughead wonders, because here he is, still breathing, and he’s fine.

He’s fine.

  
  
  


_ September _

  
  


** _your love feels so fake and my demands aren’t high to make._ **

Archie hates school. Hates Grundy too, but he stays in her class anyway. Kisses her, fucks her, because she likes it and he likes not being alone.

He doesn’t ever want anyone to find out, though he’s aware they probably should because there are a lot of assemblies and pamphlets and posters all around the school about sexual assault and other associated crimes. So Archie knows that this isn’t the best idea, because he doesn’t truly want this, he doesn’t, and he never actually tells her that he wants any of it, so technically (more than technically, but, well) she’s raping him and he’s allowing it.

He knows this, he knows it, he knows it.

Knowing it doesn’t stop him though, and he hangs on to the feeling of being close to someone else, even though everything about it feels wrong, wrong, wrong because she isn’t, well, him.

Sometimes he says Jughead’s name instead of hers. Sometimes he pushes her hands away from his soulmark over his heart. Sometimes he shoves her away all together, curls in the corner and whispers Jughead’s name like a mantra until she pulls him back onto his feet with sweet nothings that he forces himself to hear in Jughead’s voice and he stays with her in this blank state of mind until he’s convinced himself he’s okay, this is okay.

It is not okay, but he can’t bring himself to wake up until Jughead’s real voice speaks Jughead’s real thoughts while Jughead’s real eyes stare into his.

“I saw you, Archie,” Jughead says, looking somehow  _ don’t touch me  _ and  _ don’t pull away _ at the same time, and Archie’s world crumbles all over again, for the fuckteenth time, he’s lost count.

He opens his mouth, fishing for an excuse, and Jughead pushes past him when all he can blurt out is “I like her” (lies, lies, lies).

“I’m trying to be your  _ friend _ , here, even though we’re  _ not _ , anymore,” Jughead says, fury blocking every other emotion from showing in his eyes, and Archie feels his heart crack right down the middle and reaches up to his chest, scratching absentmindedly at the soulmark that’s caused all of this in the first place.

He considers saying I miss you, just to tell the truth for once in his entire fucking life, but instead lets go of Jughead’s arm and watches him walk away, his heart beating in time with Jughead’s steps.

  
  


** _I know he loved me at one time; am I just hanging on to all the words he used to say?_ **

Jughead thought nothing could hurt him more than Archie not walking through that door at Pop’s. Then he found out he was wrong, and that Archie not even trying to apologize for it hurt more, and that nothing could hurt more than that.

He didn’t think he’d be wrong again, but then he.

Then he saw.

Archie. Archie with Geraldine Grundy. Archie with his music teacher. Archie with someone else.

But Jughead is a reasonable person, so after he calms down (after he stops crying in the janitor’s closet on the second floor when he should be in biology class), he decides he’ll do what he swore not to do and talk to Archie, just to make sure he’s okay (because Jughead may hate him right now but he will move heaven and earth if he means his soulmate is safe and he’s not strong enough to deny that).

But as good as soulmates are at loving each other, they’re just as good at hurting each other, because you have to know someone inside and out to really hit hard and they do, of course they do.

So they throw words around that should be too heavy for them to lift, but they’d rather sprain their arms than give in and fall into each other’s.

_ I like her. _

_ Your friend. _

Stupid fucking words, stupid fucking hurt, stupid fucking love that Jughead can’t get away from.

Stupid fucking Archie Andrews that Jughead can’t get over.

  
  
  


_ October _

  
  


** _I’d climb every mountain and swim every ocean just to be with you and fix what I’ve broken._ **

Archie feels sick. All over, like his limbs are tearing themselves out of their sockets and his lungs are collapsing inside of him. Fred insists he stay home, but Archie insists he go to school.

By third period he’s close to throwing up every time he opens his mouth, unable to keep his breakfast (he hasn’t eaten) down. So he stays stubbornly quiet, not wanting to embarrass himself or have to go home. He lives for the moments he gets to see Jughead, and those are few and far between and only at school, never after or before.

And he does a pretty good job until he’s walking down the hall to his last class of the day and sees Grundy at her classroom door, watching him with a smile, and hurls his lunch all over the hallway floor, falling to his knees in the rush of screams of disgust and alarm.

He clutches at his heart, feeling his soulmark throbbing against his chest, trying to tear itself from his skin, and soon his screams mix with the rest as he convulses in agony,  _ make it stop make it stop make it stop please god how do I make it stop  _ -

Suddenly there’s a hand on his back, an arm wrapping around him and the throbbing dulls to nothing in an instant, a hand over his pressed against his soulmark.

Jughead’s voice is soft in his ear, murmuring words of comfort and caring as he runs his fingers through Archie’s hair. His soulmate’s voice wars with Grundy’s in his head, banging against his skull with  _ you love me, don’t you?  _ and  _ shhh, Archie, I’m here, it’s okay _ until they’re one in the same and Archie wants the hands off, off,  _ off _ .

But Jughead won’t move, not with Archie shaking against him, and Archie has to resign himself to giving in and clutching back, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” while Jughead murmurs, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” in his ear even though it’s not, they’re not.

“Stay with me,” he finally manages, Grundy now staring at them as the halls clear out, and Jughead holds him tighter, eyes trained on Grundy like a hawk’s on its prey.

“Okay,” he says, promises, and Grundy goes back into her classroom reluctantly, and Jughead calls Fred to come and take them home.

  
  


** _I liked it better when you were on my side; I would lay my armor down if you’d say you’d rather love than fight._ **

Jughead stays with Archie, like he promised. He doesn’t know what they are anymore, because soulmates has always been enough to describe it, but now he’s not sure they’re even that.

Well, not all it entails. Not all encompassing love that swallows you whole and washes over you like an ocean that helps you breathe rather than stifles your air flow. They’re not that, not anymore, just magnified hurt and stamped down impulses.

Still, he stays. Lying in Archie’s bed with Archie in his arms, his soulmate sleeping on his chest, their bodies entwined as if they could never be torn apart. Jughead had ignored the lesson on soulmates in biology, never caring because he’d already found his, didn’t need to know anything else. But now he regrets it, wishes he’d paid attention.

Because maybe then he’d know if their bodies were actually tailored to fit together before they even existed, whether that was meant to happen. Maybe then he’d know why he hasn’t slept well since he and Archie broke, and why their marks burn whenever they’re not near each other, not touching, not loving, this time enough to give Archie a fucking panic attack, make him fucking sick in the school hallway.

He wants to ask Fred, but he’s afraid to. After all, he’s the reason Archie’s like this. He’s the reason they’re apart, struggling to live every day without each other.

Except no, he’s not. No, he’s fucking not. It’s not his fault, it’s Archie’s, it’s Archie’s and that fucking witch’s who dares to call Archie by his name.

It is  _ Archie’s fault _ , and Jughead  _ will not forgive him _ .

But he will, one day soon, and he knows it, holding Archie to him as if he’s something Jughead gets to keep.

  
  
  


_ November _

  
  


** _whenever you’re ready, can we surrender?_ **

After that, Jughead stays closer. They don’t talk, and they don’t touch, but Jughead doesn’t avoid him. They sit at the same table at lunch, and work together on group projects in class, and when Archie tells his dad he’s okay he actually starts to mean it (it’s not happy, but okay will do for now).

Archie keeps waiting for Jughead to leave his house, to be on his merry way. He waits for Jughead’s leather jacket to disappear from his desk chair, and for Jughead’s crown beanie to disappear from his nightstand, and for Jughead himself to disappear from Archie’s bed.

But Jughead stays, just like he promised, and finally Archie works up the courage to ask him when he’ll leave.

Jughead looks startled at the question, freezing in the middle of whatever he’s typing to stare at Archie with wide eyes and parted lips. Archie wants to kiss him, but knows better.

“I… I didn’t think I would be,” he finally stutters out, cheeks turning pink. “Do you… do you want me to?”

“No!” Archie blurts, desperate suddenly to take it all back, take everything back, the words and the nights and the marks. He breathes in deep. “No, no, I just… won’t FP mind?”

Jughead looks away, back at his laptop, and the air feels heavy somehow, charged with some unidentifiable sadness that Archie knows must be coming from Jughead and yet can’t quite disconnect from himself either.

“Wouldn’t know,” Jughead whispers. “Haven’t seen him in months.”

All there is is silence for a minute and then -

“Oh,” Archie whispers, then surges forward to wrap Jughead in his arms, not caring if his soulmate wants it or not.

“Stay,” Jughead mumbles, voice muffled against Archie’s collarbone, and Archie holds on tighter. “Leh go.”

Archie shakes his head, closes his eyes, and breathes in the smell of Jughead (dusty poetry books).

“No,” he whispers. “But stay, now that I’ll do.”

Jughead chokes on a laugh and shuffles until his arms are around Archie’s neck, face buried in his chest, and Archie counts it as a win.

  
  


** _everybody knows we got unfinished business, and I’ll regret it if I didn’t say this isn’t what it could be._ **

All their free time is spent with each other now, almost like the old days. They don’t bring up their soulmarks, not even the pain they feel being away from each other, because they can’t face that, can’t face it, can’t face each other.

They touch more, falling asleep tangled in one another’s arms. They talk more, muttering jokes under their breath to the other in class. They live more, taking risks left and right that they never have before.

It feels right. It feels better, like they’ve fixed something, like maybe they’re gonna be okay. Maybe they can meld themselves back together. For the first time in a long time, Jughead has hope, for that and for more, and he drags Archie with him to a movie at the drive-in and even pays, just wanting Archie’s arms around him again and needing an excuse.

As the end credits roll, Jughead twines their fingers together, laying his head on Archie’s chest. Archie jumps at the touch, surprised, but then melts into it, as natural as it used to be. Jughead closes his eyes and breathes it in, breathes him in, and brushes his lips across the back of Archie’s hand.

“I forgive you,” he murmurs, because fuck it, he loves him.

God damn him, he loves him.

  
  
  


_ December _

  
  


** _if you asked me if I love him, I’d lie._ **

Archie knows they aren’t what they were before. That they’re not together, not even close, but getting there. That they will be eventually.

It’s enough for him. Plenty, more than he deserves, really, though Jughead keeps telling him otherwise. In fact, Jughead says he deserves better, and that he’s sorry he couldn’t save Archie, couldn’t get to him in time.

Fred finds out about Grundy from Jughead, who holds Archie’s hand under the table the whole time as Archie spills out the truth, the secrets and the sickness and the  _ rape _ , which he can now acknowledge it was, and Jughead stays with him through all of it, murmuring, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” in Archie’s ear whenever he stops to try and breathe, since he can’t. Not easily, not anymore.

When Christmas comes, Jughead tries to lock himself in the bathroom, but Archie coaxes him out, if only with a Pop’s burger and fries. Jughead doesn’t speak for the whole day, only nods and shakes his head in leu of questions or thanks, and Archie wonders. He wonders, he wonders, he wonders.

“I miss her,” Jughead confesses that night, and Archie tightens around him. “I miss my sister. Like, a lot, especially right now, especially since I don’t have you to make it better anymore.”

And Archie knows what he means, he knows it, he does, but he can’t help but refute Jughead’s claims because  _ yes, you do, of course you do. _

“You have me,” he murmurs. “You have me, you do. Of course you do.”

Jughead just sighs and melts into him, closing his eyes and filling the room with tiny snores, and Archie feels his eyes well up with tears and why, why,  _ why _ , Jughead’s right  _ here _ .

  
  


** _my body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love._ **

They’re sixteen, for crying out loud, so Jughead knows he doesn’t have to worry about sex just yet. They’re not even close to being there, to being ready, and when he and Archie break up the subject leaves his mind altogether, as Jughead no longer has use for it.

But then he finds out about Archie and Grundy and realizes, people their age  _ are _ ready. Archie’s ready, clearly, because even after the Grundy situation is over and done with and only a stain on their minds, Archie still disappears into the bathroom in the early morning and Jughead can  _ hear him _ .

And Jughead can’t breathe. The sounds suffocate him, the idea of him doing it make him feel itchy all over, and he avoids looking himself when he showers, feeling dirty whenever he thinks about touching anyone else in that way, letting anyone else touch him.

Kisses, he likes. Kisses with Archie, he craves, but  _ sex _ ? Sex is, sex is, sex is…

Not something Jughead ever wants.

So he looks it up. Finds a word for it. Asexual, they call it, and he rolls the word around on his tongue in the silence of Archie’s room, wondering what the look on Archie’s face would be if he said it to him.

He likes the feel of it on his lips, just like Archie’s mouth, and so he takes to saying it in the bathroom mirror over and over and over, rehearsing how he might tell Archie.

Until he realizes that if Archie wants it and Jughead doesn’t, then Archie might not want  _ him _ , and suddenly Jughead snaps his mouth shut and closes all his tabs and bans the word from his mind unless he’s alone, deathly afraid of admitting what could cost him everything.

_ Me, _ he thinks,  _ me, because if Archie can’t love this then he can’t love me,  _ but he’s not sure it works the other way around and so he’s quiet, quiet, stuck on the line between what he wants and what he also wants, Archie and Archie waving at him from east and west.

  
  
  


_ January _

  
  


** _blue eyes, black jeans; I’ve been a fool, but strawberries and cigarettes always taste like you._ **

There’s a new girl. A new girl, and her name is Veronica Lodge, and she’s the second most beautiful person Archie’s ever seen (after Jughead, of course). She’s kind and snarky and funny and Archie likes her, he  _ likes _ her, and he tells Jughead this with a guilty look on his face and feels his mark burn, sharp and agonizing with Jughead’s pain.

“It’s fine,” Jughead says, shrugging, expression indifferent (Archie knows better, of course he knows better). “Maybe we were never meant to be together anyway, just friends, like a platonic bond or something.” Which is bullshit, and Archie knows it, because he knows him and he knows soulmates and he knows that nothing in the whole goddamn universe could keep him and Jughead from loving each other.

Even pretty funny smart wonderful girls named Veronica Lodge.

But Jughead shuts him out (again). He won’t talk to Archie, won’t touch him, and sleeps on the air mattress he dragged up the stairs when Archie wasn’t home because he won’t  _ touch _ Archie and he won’t  _ talk _ to Archie, not even to ask him about sleeping in a different fucking bed and Archie’s  _ lonely _ , okay, he’s  _ lonely _ .

So he talks to Veronica. Because she’s there and she’s smart and she’s funny, and he needs somebody so he goes to her. Because she’s better than Grundy (though let’s be honest, who isn’t?).

She’s a good kisser too, he finds out, when he takes her to Pop’s for what’s meant to be a friendly hang out but actually ends up being a date. As suddenly as their lips meet he has to pull back, clutching his chest over his heart as his mark burns sharply, almost as if he’s having a heart attack and he looks over Veronica’s shoulder to see Jughead in the booth behind them, eyes wide and heartbroken.

Archie watches, Veronica’s concerned voice a background buzz in his ear, as Jughead gathers all his stuff half-hazardly and bolts out the door, running across the parking lot into the dark. Archie stares out the window even after he’s disappeared, the pain in his mark not fading once.

Suddenly Veronica is next to him, pressed against him, asking him what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong and what’s wrong is  _ her _ but what’s right is currently burning through his shirt and so he leans down and kisses her until he can’t breathe, until the burning simmers down into a dull throbbing hurt, and he wonders if Jughead’s really managed to force it down that quickly.

No, Archie finds, just that he fell asleep, curled on Archie’s bed, buried in Archie’s blankets, wearing Archie’s hoodie with dried tear tracks on his cheeks.

  
  


** _you don’t give a damn about me._ **

Jughead doesn’t know what to do.

He thought they were getting somewhere, moving on, slowly falling back into what they used to be. Apparently it was only him that thought that, and he tries to stifle the pain, the hurt, the negative ball of swirling black anger and sadness pooling in his gut because he  _ can’t hurt Archie like that, dammit _ .

He sees how Archie scratches at his chest absentmindedly, then winces whenever the image of him and that girl flashes across Jughead’s mind. Jughead is hurting Archie because Archie is hurting Jughead and it’s all just very stupid and pointless.

So Jughead pushes it down. Pushes it all away. Throws himself into finding all the information he can on asexuality (god, he’s missed that word) because Archie doesn’t want him anyway so at the very least Jughead should be able to explain who he is to people (to himself. Jughead doesn’t talk to other people).

By burying himself in his words he finds Betty, who works for the school paper (magazine, worthless collection of hard work nobody reads, whatever) and has pretty golden hair and wide blue eyes that remind him of a needy puppy’s.

She notices his fingers shaking around his coffee cup one day and steadies them with her own and he kisses her, long and hard and deep, pushing her tongue into his mouth like he does the pain away, caressing the name  _ Veronica Lodge  _ on her skin and forgetting  _ Archie Andrews  _ smudged across his own.

  
  
  


_ February (interlude) _

  
  


** _who’s waking up to drive you home? it ain’t me._ **

Betty is not an idiot, okay. She knows Jughead isn’t her soulmate, that he probably doesn’t even like her. She also knows that his fingers tighten around hers whenever the red-haired boy and raven-haired girl pass by them in the hallway holding hands.

The boy’s name is Archie, which she only finds out because of the mark over Jughead’s heart, the one she sees when he wears a V-neck to school that’s obviously too big for him and is probably someone else’s. The girl’s name she can’t say, because she never raises her hand in class and doesn’t talk to all that many people and Jughead refuses to even look at Betty when she asks.

She resigns herself to not knowing, until suddenly they’re forced to interact during cheer practice and the girl hands her a water bottle and says, “I like your necklace, by the way. Been meaning to tell you.”

And Betty reaches up to touch it, feels the love Polly felt when picking it out for her, and looks down again, taking a drink and murmuring her thanks.

The girl waits, for a minute, and then says, “Betty, right?”

Betty coughs, looks up and offers a weak smile. “Yeah.”

The girl grins, apparently oblivious to Betty’s discomfort, and holds out a hand for her to shake.

“Glad we finally get to talk. I’m Veronica Lodge,” and just like that, Betty’s world slips off its axis and into oblivion.

  
  


** _what if I gave all I could and I thought it was enough, but I find that it was not._ **

Betty Cooper is her soulmate.

It makes sense, if Veronica thinks about it. She’s always liked girls too, and Betty is no exception, soft and sweet and like vanilla ice cream with strawberry glaze and chocolate sprinkles. She’s soft spoken and smart, strong and brave, and balances Veronica out well enough.

Betty says she won’t break up with her boyfriend just yet, because the time isn’t right and shouldn’t they get to know each other first, but the boyfriend does it for her when he finds out, whispering in Betty’s ear (that’s an exaggeration. He doesn’t shout it, but it’s not exactly quiet) that she should stick with her soulmate, see where things go. That she shouldn’t take this opportunity for granted, especially since she’s one of the lucky few who was born with her soulmark.

Veronica feels sorry for the boyfriend, wanting to apologize for stealing his girl, until she sees him sidle tentatively up to Archie in the hallway, offering an awkward smile that Archie returns with a hug.

She isn’t sure of it until the boyfriend hugs back, reaching up behind Archie’s back to grab his shoulders and burying his face in Archie’s neck, but figures this must be Jughead Jones, whose name is scrawled over Veronica’s ex-boyfriend’s heart like a scar that was never treated quite right.

  
  
  


_ March _

  
  


** _call me in the morning, tell me how last night went; I’m here, but don’t count on me to stay._ **

Archie carefully slips out of Jughead’s arms the morning after Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge are seen kissing outside Grundy’s old classroom. He doesn’t want to wake his soulmate, whose mark is calm and still and cool, not burning anymore. Archie presses a kiss to Jughead’s palm and leaves for the bathroom, ready for a shower (and then maybe some breakfast).

He stares in the mirror for a good ten minutes, at the mark right over his heart spelling out Jughead’s name in that messy scrawl he’s seen so many times on the edge of his notes wherever Jughead butted in out of boredom.

He misses a lot about Veronica. Her laugh, her smile, her welcoming warmth and understanding whenever he grasped at his heart rather than her hand. But he doesn’t miss her kisses, or her body, because he never really wanted them anyway, only a distraction from the way Jughead shut him out.

When he gets back to the bedroom Jughead’s awake, flipping through the book Archie left open on his nightstand last night and squinting at the pages, his nose wrinkled in either confusion or distaste. Archie smiles at the sight of him, so open and relaxed, and takes a moment to appreciate that this is  _ his _ . Jughead is  _ his _ ,  _ his _ soulmate,  _ Archie’s _ , and that’ll always be true, no matter who they end up with, because their names are written over each other’s hearts.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and Jughead looks up, expression startled and guilty for a minute before relaxing into something soft and tired.

“Hey,” he says back lowly, and Archie starts towards the bed and then stops, scratching at his mark again, out in plain sight over his heart like Archie’s own name on Jughead’s skinny chest.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispers, regret seeping into his words, and Jughead shrugs, not looking Archie in the eye. “I’m sorry I kissed someone else.”

Jughead looks up at that, something in his eyes that’s indistinguishable. “I’m sorry too.”

Archie nods. They stay like that, in silence, staring at each other, until Jughead pats the bed beside him. Archie shuffles over and settles there, crawling under the covers and pulling his knees to his chest like Jughead has, and Jughead takes Archie’s hand and drops their arms between them.

They sit against the headrest like that, basking in the quiet calm of simply being together, and say nothing.

  
  


** _I still want you, I still need you; I swear to love you all my life._ **

Things get easier. Jughead’s not sure how, but they do, and he starts to breathe better when Archie’s around, even when Archie isn’t touching him. Just a side effect of being soulmates, Jughead guesses, but he wouldn’t know (again, biology class is boring. He slept through that part).

They’re still not together. They’re not even friends, not really, just soulmates, the word a heavy and constant presence between them. Sometimes Jughead wonders what it would be like if that word hadn’t existed, if their names on each other’s kin hadn’t mattered.

Veronica and Betty are happy. There’s that, at the very least, and he and Archie are friends with them, close, but they don’t really spend all that much time together, because Betty and Veronica are in the honeymoon phase and they love the boys, don’t get them wrong (so they say with their crooked shirts and smudged lipstick and “I have to go to the bathroom”, “Me too”’s) but they want alone time. To truly enjoy the glowing, happy feeling that comes with being with your other half.

Jughead and Archie don’t complain. They know all too well what that’s like.

They walk home together in the dark, sticking close to street lamps and sidewalks, ignoring the songs of crickets and the occansional car that passes them by.

Archie dares to reach over and loosely grasp at Jughead’s fingers, and they walk home that way, holding hands but not.

  
  
  


_ April _

  
  


** _I’m one of your secrets; I belong to you, and you belong to me._ **

Archie doesn’t know when words suddenly became okay. Because they do, and they weren’t before, but suddenly they’re talking rapidly back and forth in conversations about whatever which thing, almost like old times. And they reach for each other too, gentle and hesitant, like a question asked a million times over because you think you know the answer but it could change at any time.

Sometimes Archie wonders if he can kiss Jughead, if he should, but then he blinks and thinks better of it, instead content just to watch Jughead sleeping peacefully in his arms.

One day they’re staying quiet, each working on their respective set of words (songs, stories, it all mixes together) when Archie looks up at Jughead and thinks,  _ God, I love you so bad I can’t breathe sometimes. _

It’s not a surprise, but it’s startling nonetheless, and Jughead looks up and meets Archie’s eyes at this exact moment, offering him a small smile.

Archie manages a shaky smile back and looks down again, scared shitless by what used to be something he could say aloud.

  
  


** _I know places we won’t be found; you know for me, it’s always you._ **

Jughead finds peace in the quiet moments with Archie, the moments when they’re alone and not near each other, each lost in their own little world of words (some sung and some typed). It reminds him of when they used to be closer, deeper, and he wonders for a minute how they could have possibly let each other slip so far away.

“Where are you?” He blurts out loud, not meaning to, then blushes red when Archie looks up at him in confusion. He stutters and trips over his words as he tries to explain, saying, “You used to be everywhere around me and now it’s like you’re there but not there and I’m the same and where have you  _ been _ ?”

Archie just stares, mouth open, seemingly unable to conjure up any words, and Jughead looks down in embarrassment, shaking his head.

“Nevermind, nevermind, it doesn’t -”

“I don’t know, Jug, where do you go when I’m gone?” Archie murmurs, and Jughead looks up, blinks, and bursts into tears.

  
  
  


_ May _

  
  


** _I’m gonna love you til my lungs give out._ **

They don’t talk about it. They  _ can’t _ talk about it and Archie can’t help but feel like he’s messed something immeasurable up, like he’s torn apart at the seams what they’d been stitching back together for weeks.

He fidgets all the time, with his fingers and with his mark, and he wonders if Jughead notices how he never seems to sit still. If he does though, he doesn’t show it, and instead focuses on his writing, hardly speaking, only moving to occasionally go to the bathroom or walk to a different class.

The air is tense, silent, but his mark doesn’t burn at all, so Jughead can’t be hurt. But still, there’s something in the air that’s different, charged, and Archie’s afraid to touch it, afraid to speak.

Finally he can’t take it anymore and whispers, “Are we okay, Juggie?”

A soft and vulnerable question in the middle of the still night, with nothing to see but the faint glow of Archie’s nightlights, and Jughead leans up on his elbow in Archie’s arms, looking down at him.

“Obviously, Archie,” he murmurs, his hand touching Archie’s face and his expression scared and sad. “Always, yeah.”

And Archie waits for him to pull away, staring back into dark black eyes, but Jughead doesn’t.

Instead he leans down, presses his lips to Archie’s cheek, and closes his eyes, settling back down into Archie’s arms with a sigh.

  
  


** _and I held your hand through all of these years, but you still have all of me._ **

Jughead traces his name over Archie’s heart when he wakes up, too early to be acceptable for a teenager on a weekend but awake nonetheless. Archie doesn’t move, arm resting limply around Jughead’s side, and Jughead watches Archie breathe as the sun rises and washes them in gold.

He thinks of that word, asexuality, on his tongue and thinks of Archie’s lips, right there in front of him, so tantalizingly close that Jughead can almost taste them -

“Morning,” Archie mumbles, blinking groggily and yawning. Jughead holds his breath, afraid that Archie can somehow tell what he was just thinking, and is about to pull away when Archie turns and curls into Jughead’s side, burying his face in Jughead’s neck.

“Love you, Juggie.”

Jughead can’t breathe.

  
  
  


_ June _

  
  


** _whatever may come, your heart I will choose; forever, I’m yours._ **

Archie doesn’t know why he suggests it. It’s just, Jughead is so close and Jughead is so beautiful and Jughead is so  _ his  _ that Archie just -

“Can I kiss you?”

Jughead’s head snaps up, eyes wide and disbelieving, almost hopeful if Archie isn’t fooling himself. He stares, speechless, mouth opening and closing as he tries to force out words through an apparent lump in his throat.

“Ye -” He croaks out, then, “ _ Yes _ .”

Archie doesn’t need any more direction than that, drawing Jughead close to him and pressing their lips together, his eyes closing as they meet and something warm and familiar like the nostalgia of childhood memories bursts forward in his chest, right beneath his mark as Jughead grips him by the hips and pulls him closer.

“I missed you,” Archie mumbles between kisses, “I  _ missed _ you,” and Jughead murmurs the same back through laughs that sound suspiciously wet.

  
  


** _and it’s not theirs to speculate, if it’s wrong and your hands are tough but they are where mine belong._ **

It’s not hard, to settle back into what they were. It’s so natural it’s almost scary, the two of them holding hands when they walk down the street and kissing each other goodnight and holding each other on the couch. Honestly, not that much changes.

Except Jughead still has that word in his mouth, bouncing around in his brain, until finally one day it explodes from his lips in a rush of breath and tears.

“Archie, I’m asexual. I don’t want sex. It doesn’t mean I don’t want you, it just mean that I can’t stand the thought of anyone touching me anywhere near there and I understand if you don’t want me anymore and if this is a dealbreaker for you or whatever and I get that -”

“Jughead,” Archie interrupts, sitting down beside him and taking his hand as Jughead tries to  _ breathe _ , “I know.”

Everything suddenly stops. Jughead can’t think straight, can’t sort out the jumbled mess of  _ oh thank god  _ and  _ seriously  _ and  _ I love you so fucking much _ in his head and so he just kind of. Stops.

“You know?” He squeaks, and Archie rubs his thumb over the back of Jughead’s hand soothingly, nodding.

“Yeah, Juggie. Of course I do.”

Jughead swallows, feeling his Adam’s apple bob. He clutches Archie’s hand tighter, wondering if Archie feels the slight burn in his mark that Jughead does. If he has since Jughead found that blasted word.

“How?” He chokes out, and Archie smiles softly, kissing Jughead’s forehead when he looks up at him.

“I know you,” he murmurs, and then, “Also you talk in your sleep.”

Jughead blinks.

Then bursts out laughing and collapses into Archie’s side, smiling like a maniac and kissing Archie’s face everywhere with a constant mumble of “You idiot, you idiot, you idiot” until it gradually becomes “My idiot, my idiot, my idiot” and they run out of breath, lapsing into silence and kisses.

  
  
  


_ July (again) (interlude) _

  
  


** _you are the best thing that’s ever been mine._ **

“Yo Archie, you ready yet?” Jughead hollers from the car, and Archie laughs, hugging Fred yet again as his dad tries desperately (and unsuccessfully) not to cry and says over and over again how proud of Archie he is, how much he loves him.

“I’m gonna miss you, son,” he finally finishes with, and Archie grins, hand over the name on his heart.

“I’ll miss you too, Dad, but I’ve gotta go. We wanna make it pretty far before the sun sets, y’know.”

Fred’s eyes twinkle as he takes in Archie’s happiness, the grin on his kid’s face, and the boy in the background drumming on the steering wheel that’s causing it.

“You just want as much time as possible with Jughead,” he accuses, and Archie shrugs, laughing as Jughead shouts his name again.

“Guilty as charged,” he says, and Fred smiles at his boy, all grown up.

“I’m glad you’re happy, Arch,” he says softly, and Archie blushes, quietening as he looks down at his hand, back on his heart as it is every five minutes or so.

“Yeah, Dad. Me too.”

Then he turns and runs down the steps towards his soulmate, his boyfriend, his Jughead and Fred watches him from the doorway as he jumps into the passenger seat, attacking Jughead with kisses and tickles, loud laughs eminating from inside the car. It continues even as they drive off, away from the house, away from Fred, away from  _ home _ , but Fred has a feeling that those boys are right where they need to be.

  
  


**you and me.**

**there is no other way.**

**\- Mercedes de Acosta**

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! thank you so much for reading!!!
> 
> :) :) :) :) :) :) :)


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